Tag Archives: Elliott Franks

The Threepenny Opera

The Threepenny Opera

★★★

Cockpit Theatre

THE THREEPENNY OPERA at the Cockpit Theatre

★★★

The Threepenny Opera

“A promising opening, that isn’t quite sustained throughout.”

We walk into the ‘Factory of Plays’. A kind of warped bandstand sits centre stage, with mannequin torsos circling it; grotesque and absurdist, some attached to rope like an umbilical cord. Or a hangman’s noose. The front rows of the auditorium are littered with musical instruments. An accordion, trombone, trumpet, cello, clarinet. A banjo here, a Hawaiian guitar there. The space feels abandoned as though some frenetic activity has been interrupted. The truncated figures, like a troupe of mute Frankenstein’s creatures, waiting to be brought back to life. Enter two inventors, in white lab coats, followed by a cast of actor musicians in high-vis jackets.

This is the premise behind the OVO Theatre’s interpretation of the Bertolt Brecht and Kurt Weill ‘play with music’. Translated by Robert David MacDonald (dialogue) and Jeremy Sams (lyrics), it adopts many ‘Brechtian’ characteristics. There is no fourth wall whatsoever here as we witness the action being created in front of us. Characters step out of the narrative to talk to us. A phone is borrowed, a beer bottle grabbed and swigged from (oh, how far we have thankfully moved on from the specious sensitivities of the pandemic), scenes are interrupted by metallic tones and bizarre announcements. We are never quite sure where we are. There is something Orwellian. Dystopian. Yet grounded in present day politics. A Clockwork Orange meets Boys from the Blackstuff. A promising opening, that isn’t quite sustained throughout.

Macheath appears, chimera-like from within a cage to the strains of his signature tune. It is uncertain whether he is being created or born. He emerges savvy and streetwise, but with a menace that is too soft at the edges. Peter Watts is clearly enjoying the role, initially channelling Harold Steptoe but then allowing his natural charisma steers him into more dangerous territory. However, the sense of true danger is never quite realised in Adam Nichols’ staging. He allows the slapstick to overshadow nuance.

“Musically it is spot on”

Mark Carlisle’s Peachum has a gravitas as Macheath’s nemesis, aided by Annette Yeo’s feisty Mrs Peachum. Their tentative hold over the beggars of London is challenged when their daughter Polly (Emily Panes) marries Macheath. Panes dresses Polly in innocence – a veil that is easily torn by Macheath’s unscrupulous womanising, allowing her to reveal the dormant steeliness. Panes has one of the stronger singing voices. Although the cast comprises an all singing, all playing company, they don’t always meet the musical challenges. Harmonies and tuning are further loosened by conductor Lada Valešová constantly ducking and diving, like an itinerant beggar, around the playing space. Song introductions suffer from a slight delay while she locates the various musicians, and vice versa. This stop-start stodginess permeates much of the first act, and it is only after interval that the flow finds its true course.

Musically it is spot on, avoiding the pitfalls of some modern interpretations of jollifying the compositions. And Brecht’s intentions are duly honoured. The absurdity is in plain sight and the surrealism defies theatrical convention. But rather than neatly slotting into the narrative, frustratingly some choices are just a touch too bizarre and random, and we disengage as our understanding gets muddied. Nearly a hundred years ago when it opened in Berlin, the work was a radical critique of the capitalist world. It is indeed just as relevant today, and doesn’t necessarily need modern anachronisms, especially ones as clumsy as slipping in references to William and Kate into the libretto, or offhand allusions to Boris Johnson. The themes are more universal than that and Brecht and Weill deserve more respect.

What cannot be avoided is the original disjointed ending, which this production does manage to pull off cohesively and with an emotional commitment that makes sense of the satire. This is largely due to Watts’ performance, his rendition of ‘Call from the Grave’ one of the highlights. Society hasn’t really changed much since “The Threepenny Opera” first premiered. The moral messages are just as raw. OVO’s interpretation retains that rawness – and the genuine grit, even if it doesn’t always grip.


THE THREEPENNY OPERA at the Cockpit Theatre

Reviewed on 21st September 2023

by Jonathan Evans

Photography by Elliott Franks


 

 

Previously reviewed at this venue:

My Body Is Not Your Country | ★★★ | August 2023
End Of The World Fm | ★★★ | August 2023
Love Goddess, The Rita Hayworth Musical | ★★ | November 2022
999 | ★★★ | November 2022
The Return | ★★★ | November 2022
L’Egisto | ★★★ | June 2021

The Threepenny Opera

The Threepenny Opera

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Romeo and Juliet

Romeo and Juliet

★★★

OVO at The Roman Theatre

ROMEO AND JULIET at OVO at The Roman Theatre

★★★

Romeo and Juliet

“This is a fine production for a summer’s evening”

 

It is the time for theatre to go into the outdoors and the annual smatterings of summer Shakespeares in parks and gardens around the country. There is no finer setting for this than amongst the Roman ruins in St Albans.

Co-directors Stephanie Allison and Amy Connery show Shakespeare’s relevance today with a bold reimagining of the script and by transferring the story to 1990s Belfast at the time of the signing of the Good Friday Agreement. Live music from an onstage band – guitar, bass, violin – provide Irish-inspired tunes to help the mood (Musical Director Tommaso Cagnoni).

The set (Designer Simon Nicholas) is dominated by an iron derrick, daubed with graffiti and the words Peace by Piece. Stacks of boxes, pallets and sacks surround it, some marked helpfully with the word Belfast. This is a working dock and the lads set the scene by throwing sacks around before we see the first evidence of a city divided. A spunky Tybalt (Katie Hamilton) taunts the rather soft Benvolio (Lyle Fulton) and an eight-person rumble ensues. The fight is presented most effectively in the form of contemporary dance (Choreographer Felipe Pacheco), with shades of West Side Story. Lady Montague (Anna Macleod Franklin) lays down the law by talking of the Good Friday Agreement. Not in iambic pentameter but certainly within the spirit of the classic text.

We meet a sullen Romeo (Ryan Downey) clearly showing his depression, but even with the use of a head mic, some projection remains necessary, and Downey’s downcast mumbling sadly loses so much of his diction. This is to be a problem for much of the evening.

The Queen Mab story helps pick up the pace due to an energetic telling by Mercutio (Jenson Parker-Stone). Parker-Stone offers the performance of the night with fine singing and a spirit that lifts the production each time he is on stage. (What a shame his character gets killed off midway through the story.)

Romeo is broken out of his melancholy with one of the finest scenes – a three-part harmony rendition of Things Can Only Get Better – but the energy drops again for the Capulet’s party with little onstage movement. Even Romeo and Juliet’s first meeting and their sharing of the love sonnet doesn’t excite. Later the couple will perform a dumb show/slow dance (to The Cranberries poignant Zombie) as they spend their sole night together. Despite some good work from Francesca Eldred as Juliet, the couple together lack any sense of the joy of experiencing love for the first time. The spark isn’t there.

As the tragedy plays itself out, Ben Whitehead as the Friar, dressed in double denim, (Costumes Emma Lyth) exploits his inner Reverend Ian Paisley; Anna Macleod Franklin takes a second role as the totally loveable Nurse and beautifully sings Nanci Griffith’s I Would Bring You Ireland as the young lovers are married; and Faith Turner as Lady Capulet gives a fine performance with her argument with Juliet about marriage: the words truly coming from her heart not from the page.

This is a fine production for a summer’s evening. The use of popular music with adapted lyrics to illustrate the text works well – The Pogues’ Sally MacLennane is a fine example; the fight scenes are dramatically portrayed with energetic kicks and punches; and the adherence to much of the original words of Shakespeare, despite the transfer into modern day Northern Island, is praiseworthy. The production deserves to appeal to the widest audience.

 

 

Reviewed on 7th June 2023

by Phillip Money

Photography by Elliott Franks

 

 

Previously reviewed at this venue:

 

A Midsummer Night’s Dream | ★★★ | May 2022

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